


Lion Taming

by EinahSirro



Series: The Lion and the Bull [3]
Category: Troy (2004)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Bondage, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EinahSirro/pseuds/EinahSirro
Summary: Achilles has Hector as his captive and toy, trying to find that perfect place in Hector's past where he can keep him, torment him, love him, control his pain, and keep him safe. But of course it isn't possible. And though he tells himself he's doing it out of compassion, it isn't kind, and it isn't safe. Achilles' mother has just about had enough of it, particularly when one careless and self-indulgent move of Achilles puts Hector in mortal danger.





	1. Thebes?

Hector woke up on his wedding day at relative peace with the task before him. The marriage would solidify their alliance with Thebes, and the princess, Andromache, was lovely. She was stiff and cold at their meeting, and spent most of her time directing her gaze reproachfully at her father, but she was elegant, and Hector was not dreading taking her to wife. 

He was a bit nonplussed at her utter lack of reaction to his own charms; women usually purred at him a bit. Of course, the way they positively growled at each other over Paris kept him from developing a too sure reliance on his appeal. But he intended to be a good husband, and treat her kindly. More important was the culmination of his father’s diplomatic overtures to nearby allies. 

He lay in the unfamiliar bed for a while longer, not wanting to open his eyes. The guest quarters at the palace of Eetion was not unpleasant, though they had rather an over-fondness for incense. But Hector was always uneasy when away from Troy, and was eager to perform the ceremony, endure the several days of celebration, and then return with his father and his new bride to his beloved city. 

He could see the daylight through his closed lids, but it came to him suddenly that the palace was oddly quiet for being so full of celebrating guests. Finally, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The next moment, he was sitting up, very startled, and very concerned. This did not look like where he’d gone to sleep… and why were the walls crumbling??

Hector scrambled up in the bed and was nearly frightened out of his wits at the sight of a muscular, bronzed soldier with long blond hair sitting cross-legged on his bed, right at his side, wearing only a tunic. The prince looked down at himself and discovered that he was wearing even less than that. He yanked the sheets over him and prepared to leave the bed, only to find, to his increased agitation, that one of his ankles was wrapped tight in leather bonds and the rope disappeared under the bed. It was clearly attached to something, however, for when he yanked his leg frantically, it would not give.

The blond soldier simply sat and watched him with intense interest. 

“Where am I?” Hector demanded.

“I don’t know,” the soldier replied calmly. “Where are you?”

The prince looked around him frantically at this strange encampment in a crumbling palace he had never seen.

“Where are we, and where is my father? And who are you??” Hector demanded, eyes blazing.

The soldier tipped his head, seeming to rather enjoy the prince’s agitation. “I’ll make you a bargain,” he said in a rich but quiet voice. “I’ll answer one question every time you answer one question. Where do you think you are?”

Hector was furious, and truly alarmed, both at once. “I am Prince of Troy and you will answer me,” he said firmly.

The soldier looked even more delighted. “I am Prince of Phthia, and I will not.”

Hector looked at him. “…Well, you just did.”

The blond opened his mouth for a moment, and then grinned, showing perfect teeth. His eyes rested on Hector with an affection that only increased his confusion.

“What a clever prince you are,” he said mockingly. “Now, where do you think you are?”

Hector yanked at the restraints with his leg, but they wouldn’t give, so he reached to unravel them. The blond prince—if prince he was—immediately grasped Hector’s wrists and held them. Having already ascertained that making demands did him no good, the Trojan began struggling grimly, only to find that his captor was far stronger, shockingly strong, and could wrestle him back onto the pillow with ease.

Now he lay gasping and wide-eyed, and pinned. And the other man was perusing Hector’s face and lips in a way that suggested that the situation could easily get even more appalling. Suddenly, Hector felt instinctively that struggling any further would do him no good at all. He went limp.

“Are we still in Thebes?” he asked uncertainly.

“Ah, Thebes. Yes we are… near Thebes. On an island. Why are you in Thebes?” Asked the fellow, still holding him down.

“I’m to be married today, and you had most certainly better release me. My disappearance will raise the sort of army you don’t want to meet,” Hector said boldly, his heart pounding with fright. His breathing was quick but he kept his stare direct and stern.

The muscular fellow holding him down looked more delighted and fond with every exchange.

“My father is undoubtedly looking for me right now,” Hector added desperately.

Oddly, that remark seemed to sober his assailant for a moment, not in concern but in the faint hint of passing sadness. Then his focus returned to Hector and he tipped his head again, inquisitively.

“Where is your brother Paris?” The man sat up now, right on top of Hector, straddling his hips in a most indecently familiar way. He was glad a few layers of sheet were between them, but even so he could feel the heat and weight of the other man settling firmly on his thighs. He released Hector’s wrists.

“He’s in Troy. Why am I here?” Hector snapped, having decided that give-one-answer, get-one-answer was better than getting no answers at all.

“You said you were here to get married,” the blond reminded him.

“No, I mean why am I in this… wreckage?” Hector looked around to see if calling for help might do any good. The place looked deserted.

“I happen to like this wreckage,” the other said. “You are here because… I don’t want you to marry Andromache. And I don’t think you want to either.”


	2. The Prince of Phthia?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector is terrified. Achilles is amused.

Hector stared up at him as if he were mad. “Who are you to interfere—oh…”

Prince of… Phthia? Was he a competing suitor? That would make sense, in a mad, not very diplomatic way. “If you have a claim upon the Princess, you should have forwarded it sooner,” Hector informed him, very formally.

“Mmm,” the other fellow nodded, and then dismounted from Hector. The Trojan watched uneasily as the other fellow picked up a long, thick strand of cloth from the floor by the bed and climbed back on top of him. “I don’t have a claim on the Princess.” He said calmly, doubling the long strand and holding it in a most ominous manner. “I have a claim on you. I think that rather than marry the Princess of Thebes, you should be the companion of the Prince of Phthia. That… is me.”

Hector gaped up at him in astonishment. This was too much for him to absorb. He reverted back to, “How did I get in here?”

“I drugged you and brought you here, and… I left a message for your family, so you needn’t worry, they know exactly where you are and why. What remains to be seen is whether your father wants to be allies with King Eetion of Thebes, or King Peleus of Aegina. My mother is a goddess, so I think I’m the better choice,” he finished lightly, still holding the binding strip consideringly in his hands.

Hector lay amazed, staring up at this madman.

“Although the Princess can give you an heir. But she’s very skinny,” the other added somberly.

Finally, Hector asked carefully, “What is your name?”

The blond’s eyes took on a feral blue glow and suddenly his focus on Hector was terribly intense. “What do you think it is?”

Hector felt dizzy. Son of Peleus and a goddess? Stronger than mortal man? Beautiful blond hair, mad as a rabid dog and twice as dangerous? 

“Are you… are you Achilles?” He asked in dread.

He watched in terror as his captor stared down at him with a frightening mix of tenderness and raw hunger.

“What have you heard about me?” the warrior breathed.

Hector lost all self-control and lunged up, grappling with the golden creature atop him, frantic to escape. His captor wrestled with him ardently, seeming to enjoy it immensely. Of course, in a moment Hector was pinned again.

“I’ll make you another bargain,” Achilles said, eyes glowing. 

Hector panted up at him, heels digging into the bed in helpless fright.

“If I can bind your wrists with this cloth, you must be my companion for the rest of your life. My bed slave to ravish and humiliate, bind and flog… you’ll be naked most of the time.”

Coldness washed over Hector as he stared up at the… Achilles. The legendary, murderous, Achilles. On top of him. He couldn’t speak.

“If, however, you can get this binding out of my hands and … throw it across the room—I’ll release you and take you back, and you can marry the frigid, skinny princess and have fragile, skinny children. Bargain?”

The madman sat up again and took up the binding cloth, and waited, eyebrows raised, for his confused, horrified captive to accept this bargain.

Just then, a slender woman with long, gray hair walked into the large room, and passed the huge fire pit carrying a wooden bowl of fruit.

“You really are a monster,” she remarked calmly, setting the bowl down by their bed and turning to leave.

Achilles looked at her as if her appearance startled him nearly as much as Hector. “Mother—“ he said, and spread his hands as if to present an invisible conundrum to her.

“Don’t forget the fisherman comes today.” She leaned over the bed and gave Hector’s dark curls a quick pet. “Don’t worry, dear. Poor thing… really, Achilles.”

Hector’s eyes followed her pleadingly as she turned away, but she walked out again and Achilles stared after her, clearly exasperated. Then he sighed and took up the binding cloth again in both hands.

“Make ready… and… go!” 

Hector lay stupefied as the other man tied his hands together and sat back. “You didn’t even resist. I think you don’t want to marry her.”

Now the Prince of Troy was staring fixedly at the ceiling. Perhaps he was dreaming.

Achilles pulled the loose ends of the binding cloth up over Hector’s head, dragging his wrists toward the wall where he secured them to a large, bronze ring that was embedded there, like a ring for securing one’s horses.

“I just put that in not long ago. It’s strong. We’ve tested it,” Achilles assured him. 

Swallowing, Hector tried carefully to pull himself up toward the ring, but his leg was still wrapped up in the leather binding that prevented him. He watched in dazed fright as Achilles … clearly the legendary Achilles, and clearly just as uncivilized as rumor had it… lowered his face to Hector’s hips and pulled the sheet aside, exposing him. He was half-hard, more from struggle than anything else, but the feral, blue-eyed creature put his lips directly on Hector’s cock.

Hector jerked his breath in and held very still.

“Have you ever had anyone tie you up and then suck your cock till you are begging for mercy? That you remember?” The madman whispered.

Hector lay quivering in shock as his captor licked and suckled on him leisurely. For a few moments, he concentrated sternly on the fact that this was his wedding day and what was happening was not at all what should be. Then his captor decided that he wanted the prince’s undivided attention, and he moved his hand up to join his lips, and put one thumb behind the balls and pushed in.

“Aaah!” The cry emitted from his lips unwillingly as the bound man squirmed on the bed. 

Now the blond swallowed Hector’s full erection down his throat and wrapped one powerful arm around the one free leg the prince had, and forced it up and away, exposing him more, while the other hand that had slid up his other thigh and buried its thumb in the crevice behind his balls dug in. Meanwhile, the blond sucked on him eagerly, pulling out to lick the head, and then swallowing him down again. 

Hector’s hips were moving wantonly now, and he closed his eyes in mortification, letting out another cry as that thumb pushed in… it felt almost as if it were going into him. The tantalizing assault continued for a long moment more, and then Achilles pulled his mouth off of him with a pop, and Hector groaned in despair.

“But I can’t see your face,” the blond breathed, and climbed up him recline next to his captive.

Achilles rolled away for a moment and reached behind himself to dig his fingers into a small, clay pot. He brought them back slick with oil. “Smell this,” he said, putting it under the prince’s nose for a moment.

Hector blinked rapidly. It smelled familiar. Then he watched with… he realized it was anticipation as the hand went down to his throbbing flesh and took it expertly in hand, squeezing firmly, and jerking rhythmically. 

The prince was nearly out of his mind with pleasure and shame, and Achilles smiled to see them both in those dark eyes. He paused in his stroking for a moment to maneuver the arm he leaned on under Hector’s head so he could grab a good, firm hold on that shiny dark hair. He watched gloatingly as the prince’s head fell back in utter submission, his mouth open, his eyes closed. It was one of the warrior’s favorite sights: Hector in ecstasy, mindless with sensation. He manipulated the turgid flesh roughly, biting his own lip in concentration as he felt the hard cock tighten and convulse in his hand. He stroked his lover through the orgasm, making him shout incoherently and writhe, and then stiffen in a paralyzed spasm before sagging back with unfocused eyes into the bed.

Then, as he often did, Achilles scooped up his lover’s creamy fluids and spread them on his own thick member, stroking himself to completion while he stared down at the pulse racing in Hector’s long throat. When he came, he buried his face silently in that throat, tasting the sweat and thrusting himself against the hard, warm body beside him.


	3. The Cliff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector doesn't know Achilles, doesn't know the lay of the island, doesn't know how much danger he may be in, and panics. Panic can be dangerous.

Hector staggered dizzily from the crumbling suite, wrapped in blue cloth, to find himself on a colonnade of broken stones, and ivy-wrapped columns, lined with fruit trees. Near a bubbling fountain, two young women fed chickens while the gray haired woman reclined nearby, watching them with pleasure.

She saw Hector emerge, hair wild, eyes dazed. “Are you hungry? We have olives and bread.”

He just stared at her.

She shook her head and sighed, “I hate when he does this.”

Hector came toward her tentatively. “He does this often?”

“Regularly,” she said drily, and handed him a piece of bread soaked in oil.

He took it with an automatic thanks and ate it, still standing. The two young women glanced over at him in amusement, and he looked down quickly to ensure that the folds of blue covered him decently enough.

“What happens after?” Hector asked uneasily.

“After what?”

“Does he kill them?”

Thetis wasn’t quite sure what that meant. “Kill who? He’s killed many men,” she admitted. 

Hector stared at the stone floor in horror.

“Water?” She asked, offering him a chalice.

He took it with the air of someone accepting his last drink and swigged it down. Then he straightened and seemed to overcome some of his fear.

“Where is the boat?” He asked.

“What boat? Oh, yes, the fisherman. Straight down those stairs. But Achilles is already down there. Was there something you wanted to buy?”

Hector had turned as if to go down the stairs, but hearing that the warrior was already down there, he stepped back and looked at her with huge, pleading brown eyes.

“Anything?” She prodded.

He shook his head, gaze drifting away from her again.

“You could let the horses out of the stable,” she suggested, as the poor young man seemed so at loss.

He turned to her hopefully. “Horses?”

She glanced over at the taller of the two handmaids. “Show Hector where the stable is; I’m sure he doesn’t remember. Wait… where are his sandals? Do get them.”

Confusedly, Hector accepted his sandals and put them on, and then tightened the blue cloth around his hips and shoulder, and followed the girl to a small stable. It was well built but simple, and the handmaiden left him stepping carefully over the straw to meet the horses who seemed oddly delighted to see him. He stroked their fine noses for a while, and then slid open the doors and backed away, not wanting his feet crushed, as they moved eagerly out and trotted away across a rolling pasture that seemed to go uphill for a long distance.

Hector stood and gazed around. The island was not large. The sky was overcast and gray. The pasture had footpaths worn by the horses, and he decided to follow them. If Achilles had a tendency to kidnap men, violate them, and then murder them, Hector had best find a place to conceal himself while he decided what to do next. 

Down on the beach, Achilles was dealing with the fisherman again. 

“Any news from Troy?”

“You’re an odd one, you always ask that. I tell you, it was burned to shambles, oh, a year ago... Just rubble now. Got some scavengers there. Used to be a few pirates docked there sometimes to make camp, but now even they don’t bother.”

“Do you know what happened to a member of the royal family named Briseis?” Achilles asked. 

The fisherman nodded thoughtfully, “There’s a Briseis in Agamemnon’s household. He’s dead, you know. Killed by his wife! Ha! But the Trojan woman married one of his sons, I think. She and the other one … Hector’s wife. They’re both there.”

“They have children now?”

“Oh yes. Say, I have a good strip of leather here. You could make… oh, I don’t know, something from it. Need more cloth? I have this pale green, they dye it from soaking it in water boiled with leaves. You can’t wash it too much or it fades, but it’s a fine shade. Women like it. Say, those two pretty young things, now, they’d like some new cloth. Are they here?” His old eyes moved restlessly past Achilles, hoping to see the handmaids. “There they are, I see them peeking!” The old man waved flirtatiously to the girls, who hovered near the bottom of the steps leading down to the beach, sneaking glances from behind the small, twisted trees that tried to grow out from the rocks on the bluff.

Achilles turned and waved them down impatiently. They could carry the goods back up to his mother. He left the bundle on the rocks for them, except for the leather strip.

“Ah, there’s your king up there. He looks a bit addled, if you don’t mind me saying so,” the fisherman remarked in passing, and then stepped forward playfully to scold the handmaids for being so pretty.

Achilles turned and looked up the bluff. Yes, there was Hector, clutching his blue cloth around himself, staring down at him. Darius II was next to him, nuzzling him with his long nose. The sky was growing very gray and the breeze picked up.

“I’ll have to be quick or I’ll get wetter than I want to be!” He heard the fisherman say to the handmaids, who giggled as they always did.

Achilles walked down the beach until he was directly under Hector, who still watched him closely. The warrior’s lips curved in a little smile, but then Hector turned and stared off in the direction of Troy.

How did he know what direction to look, Achilles wondered. How was that the one thing he always remembered? His good mood faded abruptly. No matter how far back he took Hector, like a migratory bird, he turned toward Troy. Every time. Achilles stared up at Hector, and Hector stared off at Troy. Achilles' breathing sped up a touch, and his brow drew down in a scowl. _No matter what I do,_ he thought. A dark impulse came over him, and he came forward and started climbing the rocks leading directly up to Hector. He was halfway up before the prince tore his longing gaze from the horizon and looked down to see Achilles coming up the cliff side.

Backing away in alarm, Hector turned to look for a place to hide. The bay horse danced away at his sudden movement and galloped away before he could grab it and throw himself on its back. Hector hesitated. There was nowhere to go, and after a moment he chastised himself for even having such an impulse. If there was nowhere to hide and nowhere to run, he’d just have to stand and fight. 

His heart pounded as the blond head emerged from beyond the bluff’s edge and the Greek pulled himself up like an angry god rising up out of the water and strode toward him, a long leather strip clutched in one hand. 

Hector felt the first few raindrops hit his skin and the wind blew back the yellow hair of the man coming toward him. 

“Let me go,” Hector demanded as soon as Achilles was near him.

“Go where?!” Achilles barked at him, coming to stand before him. His face was flushed and his eyes looked paler than Hector remembered. They weren’t blue like the ocean; they were grey like the sky, and he stood with his legs wide apart as if bracing for action.

“Let me go home,” Hector said. He’d meant to say “back to Thebes” but somehow what came out was home, _home,_ he wanted to go home, like a child.

Achilles looked suddenly angry, as if beneath the pleasant veneer was a building rage. “You have no home to go to. This is it.” He pointed to the ground at their feet. “This! This is it!”

Hector looked away again, toward a spot on the horizon that he just knew somehow, instinctively, was Troy. The rain fell harder, and it almost seemed to him that the skies were trying to communicate with him.

“There is nothing there for you there,” Achilles proclaimed, pointing toward Troy, and Hector could only assume the man was even more crazed than legend had it. “There is nothing! There is no wife, there is no child. Your father was old and your brother was a fool and I will have no more of you staring off at that smoking heap!”

Hector tore his gaze from the horizon and now stared at Achilles, absorbing only that the man was now referring to his father and brother in past tense. _Was?_

Suddenly, the blond drew back his arm and, gripping the leather strip, struck Hector across the shoulder a stinging blow with it. Hector threw up his arm to ward off the attack, but Achilles drew back again and again, flogging him like a slave. 

Hector lunged into his arms, grappling with him in the rain, trying to wrap his longer legs around the other man and bring him down, but although he was able to confound the man a couple times, the warrior’s strength and skill were superior, and he threw Hector to the wet ground and stood over him, striking him with the leather strap repeatedly, mind blank with anger.

Finally, Hector leapt to his feet and ran straight at the cliff. Achilles chased him, roaring with rage. Hector glanced back at him and ran to the edge, and then disappeared over it.

Achilles stumbled to a halt, eyes disbelieving, and then horror-struck. He stared at the edge, registering that there was no Hector there now, and he seemed to think that if he waited, Hector would reappear. But he did not. And now the rain was driving down hard.

The warrior dropped the leather and pushed his wet hair back from his face with both hands, mouth open in silent howl. Finally, he staggered to the edge and looked down. Hector lay motionless on the sand below, and the tide was rolling in toward him, and then falling away before reaching him. Then rolling in again closer, and drawing away, and still Hector did not move.

Achilles let out a roar of despair and fell to his knees, his eyes nearly white. The veins stood out in his forehead and his mouth opened so wide, he looked inhuman. He screamed into the storm again, eyes blind, fists clenched. Then his human side took over. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed in the rain like a bundle of rags and lay as still as Hector. The rain pounded down on them both.


	4. Thetis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Achilles' mother can tell something is wrong.

Thetis lit the candles in the corners of the citadel that still held shelter enough from the rains, and gestured for the handmaids to stoke up the fire pits. She rather enjoyed the rains normally, but there was something odd about this one. She narrowed her eyes and looked about, wondering what it was that alerted her instincts. 

Suddenly she heard a roar like waves, but it was not waves. All three women straightened and looked at each other. Then she stepped quickly to her son’s quarters to see the white sheet fluttering over the empty bed.

Without a word, she wrapped herself in a heavy cloak and headed into the storm, the handmaids trailing behind her, their faces ducking from the wind and rain. As they emerged from the gardens and passed the stables, the two horses came galloping from the higher land for shelter, and Thetis headed in the direction they’d come from. The horses always seemed to be near Hector, and where there was Hector, there would be her son.

It didn’t take them long to find the limp figure lying in the mud; his hair, even wet, was easy to see. The women ran to him, and knelt around him, and Thetis put her fingers to his neck. She was relieved to feel his pulse strong and steady. But his face was a sight. His eyes were half open but only the whites were visible, and she lifted her head to look around; where was Hector?

“Find Hector,” she told one of the girls, and leaned down to assure herself that she could hear her son’s heartbeat.

A short cry from the cliff’s edge drew her worried gaze, and by the way the girl stood and looked down, hands over her mouth, Thetis knew what she must be witnessing. 

Jumping to her feet, she went and looked. Hector lay limp in the sand, and the tide was pulling at his feet. He wasn’t moving. Might be dead. She looked back at her son and decided: he was in shock, but it wouldn’t be fatal. If Hector could be saved, she had better save him, or her son might never recover.

She draped her cloak over her catatonic son, and then carefully, she and the handmaids began clambering down over the slick rocks. It was a miserable trek, and the rain did not relent, but she was determined to get to Hector before the waves took him out to sea. Even if he was dead, her son would want to clean and cradle that body, and howl over it, she knew. She shuddered at the thought, but continued on.

When they finally reached the sand, they had to fight the waves that seemed to want Hector. Finally it occurred to her that the waves could help if she let them, and Thetis wrapped her arm around Hector’s neck—carefully, for he might still be alive—and let the waves come and lift them both. Together, they slid into the water. He was too heavy to carry, but in the water, he was light, and she… well, she was a sea nymph, was she not? She and the handmaids sank into the water and a channel seemed to form for them, letting her pull Hector through the water around the side of the island to the steps.

He was too heavy even for the three of them to safely carry up the steps, so they pulled him to the relative shelter of a few hanging trees, and huddled with him there, stroking his wet hair back from his face. Finally, he looked calm, and his brow was unfurrowed. He looked at peace.

Thetis cradled his head and whispered to him, “I am sorry, my dear boy. I am sorry. But peace for you would be an inferno to my son.”

She closed her eyes, put her hand on his chest, and concentrated all her powers on entering him, finding what was ruptured, what was broken, what was swelling, what had bled away, and drawing it back together, mending and knitting, healing and reconstituting. The rain ran down her bowed back as she hunched over Hector, rocking back and forth, her hand pressed into his chest, her face pursed and furrowed as if in pain.

When Hector’s brow knit up again, and the peace left his face, and his eyes opened blearily to stare up at her without comprehension, she heaved a great sigh of relief. Her hair seemed somewhat grayer, and the rain suddenly eased, and then stopped. 

The four of them stayed there for several minutes, drained of energy. 

Finally, she spoke.

“Do you know who I am?”

He shook his head, looking around at the two handmaids, who gazed at him with close to adoration, and seemed to want to pet his arms.

“Do you know who you are?”

He swallowed. “Hector of Troy.” His voice was rather scratchy.

“Do you know where you are?”

He looked around again, and shook his head, seemingly exhausted. Yes, he probably was, she thought with some pity.

“Do you see those steps? We must go up them.”

At that point, Hector seemed to realize he had nothing to cover him but a sodden swath of blue cloth, that had somehow been entangled enough between his legs to survive the journey through the water. He drew the cloth up with shaky hands and they helped him to his feet. 

The trek up the stairs was difficult. He had little strength, uncertain balance, and no energy. It took all three women guiding, urging, balancing and supporting him, but finally they were staggering into the colonnade. 

Thetis turned and gave her girls instructions in a voice low and serious, “Take him to my own quarters. I want him in the bed and the curtains drawn around it. No lethe. He can have vegetable broth with egg and salt, and he can have water or calda, but more honey and spice than wine. Get him dry, wrap him up warm, and don’t get familiar with him! I’ll be back shortly.”

She started to step away, but paused. “If my son returns before I do, you tell him nothing. As far as he knows,” her voice dropped even more, “Hector’s body was pulled out to sea. It’s time I took charge of this nonsense.”


	5. A Goddess's Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thetis is going to teach Achilles a lesson. Hard men need hard lessons.

Thetis traded her wet clothing for dry and then set off again over the damp grass to the cliff’s edge. The sun was setting, and the clouds had broken up somewhat. Achilles was curled there, head in the grass, fingers digging into the mud. His eyes were open and staring. She looked down at him with very little pity. Thetis rarely got angry, but when it finally happened, it was a cold anger.

“Where is Hector? She asked him.

He stared at the edge of the cliff without answering. Calmly, she stepped to the edge and looked down.

“I see his sandals. The waves must have taken his body. How very sad. Shall we go back? You need a bath.”

Achilles did not respond. 

“Well, when you are ready,” she said, and stalked back to citadel. Enough of these dramatics for one night, she resolved. 

Back in her quarters, she set one girl to keep watch against Achilles’ return, and she and the other tended to Hector. He was slightly feverish, but not alarmingly so. He drifted in and out of sleep and was very undemanding. But of course he would be.   
They rubbed his chest with pungent oils to keep his lungs working, and got broth into him at intervals. Thetis drank some tonic of her own making to replenish herself, and then placed her hand on his chest and sent more of her own healing energy into him. 

Occasionally, she asked him, “Do you know where you are? Do you know how you got here?”

Mostly, he knew nothing. She shook her head. Her son must have drugged him recently and heavily. In a mood, she turned and poured all of the lethe from the tall blue clay urn she usually kept it in to a lower, squatter gray one that she rarely used for anything. Then she hid the gray urn and left the empty blue one in its usual place.

“We’re going to have to do this the hard way,” she told Hector, who blinked up her with his deep, dark eyes and then faded off again.

When night finally fell, she ordered the torches in the garden lit and the fire pit cleaned out and restocked with dry wood. They lit that as well. Then she had the handmaids toss an unused cot with blankets near it. She felt certain that her son would come staggering back in the middle of the night and would most likely be unable to face the empty bedroom.

When she was finally ready to sleep, she and the handmaids all crawled into her huge bed and tucked themselves around the sleeping prince, rather like feminine guard dogs, and drew the curtains around them.

When morning came, and the chickens were stepping around the garden expecting food, Thetis emerged to find Achilles curled up on the cot by the embers of the fire. His face was buried in the blankets, but even in sleep his fingers were digging into them with a hint of the violence to come.

“I suppose this means I have to feed the horses,” she said to no one in particular, and went to the stables.

When she returned, her son was awake and staring at nothing again. The handmaids were peeking from Thetis’s quarters and seemed uncertain as to whether they dared come out and leave Hector unguarded. She raised her finger to her lips warningly and then called out to them.

“Come heat some water. My son needs to bathe.”

She went to check Hector and found him awake and contemplating the fish they’d heated and salted for him.

“Do you know where you are?” She whispered.

“Temple?” He asked uncertainly.

“Temple where?”

“Athena? At Mount Ida?”

“Hm. No. Stay in here. Stay quiet. Do you know who Achilles is?”

His eyes widened slightly. 

“He is right out there, and you do not want him to see you, do you understand?” She whispered carefully, as if he were a child. “You stay in here, eat and rest.”

It took some urging to get Achilles off of the cot and into the bath. The handmaids offered to wash him and he lashed out at them unexpectedly, causing them to squeal and jump away. His mother glared and then went to tend to him herself.

“Let’s just get you clean. You’ll feel better when you’re clean.”

He sank into the water, expressionless and silent. Thetis cleaned him as she had when he was small, pouring the water over his head, laving the long hair and rinsing it. Finally he was clean and curled again on the cot in the courtyard. The sun was out now, and shining down. He wouldn’t eat.

At length, his mother felt he was ready, and she came to him with a chalice of wine.

“My son. Drink this. I’ve lethe enough to help you forget Hector to the end of your days. Here. Drink. The pain will go away.” She offered it.

He leaned away, staring toward the embers. She could see him gritting his teeth.

“My son, please.” She said pleasantly, “This will make his memory go away. You’ll forget his eyes, his hair, his neck… you’ll forget his goodness, you’ll forget his stubbornness, his quaint prudery, his longing for home, all his weaknesses that you knew how to play on. You’ll forget everything he ever made you feel. You’ll forget there ever was a Hector. It will be as if he’d never existed.”

Achilles fairly cringed at her words, and she watched him shudder with no sympathy at all.

“Why won’t you drink?” She said innocently. “Don’t you want to forget him?”

She put the chalice on the stones next to his foot, and he shrank from it, casting a hateful eye down at it.

“You can find another lover. Greece is full of tall, handsome men. We’ll find you another Hector.” She said cheerfully, touching his shoulder lightly. He flinched as if she were burning him.

Now his face was starting to work, and the moisture was coming into his eyes.

“Drink,” she cooed relentlessly, her eyes as cold as northern seas. “Forget how he made you feel. Forget the way you were changing. Drink, and you can be as you were before Odysseus came, and you were dreaming of glory and fame. How simple and uncomplicated you were then, my son. How much Hector has changed you. Drink and it will all go away. You can forget him.”

Finally his face crumpled and he began sobbing uncontrollably. She watched in great satisfaction. Achilles had rarely cried as a child, and he was not good at it. The grief bounced around his chest and throat like a frantic animal that couldn’t find its way out of a cage, and his sobs sounded like the choking gasps of a dying monster. She hoped it was indeed a dying monster.

“Drink, and you can forget how much this has all been your own fault. From the moment you met him, drunk on revenge for a wrong that was not his doing, this has been your fault. You brought him here like a pet to keep, and then experimented on his mind until he did not know who you were, or where he was, or the lay of the land.”

She watched him heave for a moment and then coolly continued. “And what were you trying to do? Make him forget who he was, so you could have a Hector of your own making? Well, now he is gone, and you can find another, I suppose. Find one with no sense of duty, no honor, and no complicated notions of justice, and you can make him into whatever you want.”

Now her son was curled on the pallet, fists to his face, crying like a burned child.

“Oh, but you want only him. You want the man who changed you. Were you trying to change him for revenge? That seems like something you might do. And you drove him right over a cliff. You might as well have let him die at Troy, with his family. You had no business interfering with his life.” Her voice was as calm as a running river and far more deadly.

Achilles was sobbing so hard now it seemed as though he might vomit. His face was red. His eyes were probably white but they were squeezed tight and running with tears, so she couldn’t see.

“Drink, then. Forget the pain. Don’t you want to forget the pain?” She urged, her tone soothing, though the words were like broken pot shards over his grief.

“Why don’t you drink? Why do you hold onto this anguish? Are your memories of Hector so precious? Are you afraid that if you forget him, he will be more dead?”

He buried his face in the blankets and screamed raggedly, as if trying to drown out her voice. 

Thetis looked around at the handmaids, who were staring at her in horror. “Never cross me,” she said.

They fled to her chambers to see to Hector, and she returned to torturing her grieving son. “If you would rather cling to your grief than forget, consider what he must have felt every time you stripped him of his memories and his grief, making him forget, making him wander in confusion and darkness and fear, for what? For your own curiosity? Your own comfort? Your own amusement? Now you see what it is, to be asked to erase the memory of what you loved so that others don’t have to hear your pain. No wonder he jumped off the cliff. You drove him to it.”

She watched him bawl like a dying calf for a while and then, satisfied that she’d demolished him utterly, she went to check on Hector.

Sitting by his bedside, she stroked his curly hair and murmured, “I suppose it’s my fault really. I didn’t correct his faults enough when he was young, and I let him torment you nearly to death because I didn’t wish to exert myself.”

Hector opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Do you know where you are?” She asked pleasantly.

He looked around uncertainly. “Sparta?” 

She sighed. “No, but we’re getting closer.”


	6. Achilles in Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thetis would cheerfully have let Achilles suffer for a week, but it's a small island.

Thetis kept watch over her two sons—for that was what it eventually came to feel like—all through this longest day. Achilles sobbed and raged on the pallet in the garden, and she offered him lethe again, watching with cold satisfaction as he shuddered away from it. Whenever he calmed, she coaxed him again, and told him that Hector was finally at peace, and he could be too if he would just drink. She reduced him to convulsions of anguish again and then left him clawing at his blankets like an animal, to return to Hector, who was beginning to evince uneasiness about the fate of Troy.

By sunset, she felt the two were nearly at the crossroads, and she went to her son, who was exhausted with grief. His eyes were swollen nearly shut. He looked truly terrible.

“My son, if you are truly inconsolable, we must find Hector’s body. If you can find him, and if he has been in the sea the whole time, there might be something I can do. My magic is strong here, in this place of my birth. Go down to the sea and try to find him. Perhaps all is not lost.”

Achilles staggered down the steps, and she directed both handmaidens to go with him. “I don’t think he can drown, but just in case.”

Then she returned to Hector, who was alert and strong enough to be restless in the confinement of her quarters.

She led him out into the garden. “Here… it looks like your father’s garden, yes?”

“Yes,” he turned and regarded his surroundings with some astonishment. “But we are on an island, are we not? Shouldn’t I go and watch to see if the Greeks are returning?” 

“It’s growing dark; you’ll see nothing,” she said.

“Oh, yes…” he was still a bit vague.

“Do you remember who brought you here?” She asked.

Hector looked rather blank. 

“You do remember Achilles…” She asked with some concern. This wasn’t a variable she’d factored in, the possibility that Hector might have somehow—

“Of course I do,” Hector said with some unease.

She nodded. _Now begins a delicate process,_ she thought. “He brought you here.”

Hector’s gaze focused on her and sharpened. His head turned directly to face her. “Why?” He said, and she could see that sternness that had so captivated her son. 

“To keep you safe.”

Hector lifted his head as if sensing that bad news was coming. His brows were knitting up again with that sorrow and anxiety that were so much a part of him, as much a part of him as the long, sloping neck, and broad shoulders.

“Wait here,” she said. Then she turned to descend the stairs to the beach. Achilles was swimming about, diving down to search the waters and then coming up again for air. She beckoned him in, and he came trudging and clearly heartsick.

“Now I will tell you the truth.” She said, in a tone that warned her son that no matter how much he disliked what he was about to hear, it was the truth, and she had no interest in his opinion on the matter.

“I brought you into this world and I gave you life, and as such, you owe that life to me and will to the end of your days. You understand this.” She paused, and he nodded, face blank as it was when his emotions were too much for him.

“Now you have tasted grief. You got a taste of it when Patroclus died, but you buried your grief in vengeance and plotting, and you have kept above grief like a squirrel leaps from one tree to another without touching the ground. Your fear of your own grief made you fear Hector’s grief. And you are not stupid…” she added, putting her hands on his shoulders. He stared at the ground. “Had anyone else behaved in this manner, you would have seen it and spoke it, dragging it out of them without the slightest mercy. You used to brag to poor Hector—“ it was her last chance to torture him a bit “—about him being at your mercy, but you had very little of it, didn’t you?”

Achilles stood as one defeated, his head down, his shoulders drooping.

“Now I will tell you something, and you must not shatter like a dropped pot.”

He lifted his head and looked at her with eyes that said plainly that he had suffered the worst of grief and there was little left to be afraid of.

“I found Hector last night,” she said.

He pulled away from her and turned to face the sea, breathing deeply. 

“I knew that if he died, you would grieve for… who knows how long. So I used all my powers to save him. But listen—“

He turned slowly and stared at her as if afraid to understand the import of what he just heard.

“—he is still confused. He is still afraid of you. Yes, yes, he’s still alive, that should be obvious at this point, but listen—no, no, no!!” She blocked his way before he could charge up the beach toward the stairs.

She pushed him back and held him with the tips of her fingers to his chest, as only a mother (who is a goddess, albeit a minor one) can do.

“—he is not your plaything any longer.” She warned him. “I have put the lethe away, well away. Hector is going to remember everything, and you will live with it. Now. You may go up to him, but do not go running up there and pounce on him like an animal who has regained his favorite toy,” she finished.

She stood back and watched as her son went to the bottom of the stair and looked up. Then he looked over at her. “Slowly!” She told him, and she and the handmaids watched as he mounted the stairs.

“Stay down here,” she told the girls. “Let’s leave them to it.”

Then she turned and walked up the beach, suddenly tired. _Enough of this nonsense,_ she thought, and took a deep breath. Her eyes fell on a pretty seashell and she stooped to pick it up. Yes, this was a nice one. She held on to it and walked further, looking for more. Seashells were soothing. Having a son was not. Especially a son like Achilles.


	7. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hector is alive. Achilles is demolished.

Hector waited in the garden in the gathering dusk. There was a fire pit nearby with fresh wood and a flint, so he set himself to lighting it. Once the flames were well along, he hunkered beside it, appreciating its golden glow and heat. After a moment, he became aware that a familiar figure was watching him from the shadows. He glanced up. 

“Have you been swimming?” he asked, noting the dripping tunic and wet hair.

Achilles stood and stared at him silently, and his breathing seemed to come abnormally short and fast.

Hector stood. “Are you well?” He asked uncertainly. A closer look at the warrior’s face made unease rise in his chest. His eyes were so swollen, it looked as though he’d been beaten. His lips, too, seemed somewhat swollen and unable to close. And his breathing sped up more as he stared blankly at Hector.

The prince wasn’t sure whether to reach out to him, or back away for his own safety. A prickle of heat went over his arms and back, as if he were breaking into a sweat.

“Achilles,” he said, and then finally reached out to lay his warm hand on the cold, wet shoulder.

Now the warrior’s breath came in deep gasps, and his head fell back. His eyes stared glassily up at the deep blue of the twilight sky.

Hector felt he’d risked enough and stood very still, one warm hand on the other man’s shoulder, dark eyes concerned and not a little wary.

Finally the blond head rolled back forward and Achilles returned to staring at him through his swollen lids.

“Are you ill?” His prince asked cautiously.

The warrior nodded wearily, and Hector was relieved to at least get a recognizably human response.

“Would you like to sit by the fire?” He wasn’t sure what else to offer.

Achilles reached out and took his hand, and then turned and wordlessly led the prince into their chambers. Hector followed uncertainly, looking around at the crumbling walls. Then he saw the encampment-like arrangement around their bed and said, “Ah, this must be your room.”

Achilles gestured to the fire pit. “Would you?”

Hector saw to the fire, and when it was casting its light, he turned to see that Achilles had shucked his wet clothes and was toweling his hair. Then he chucked the cloth to the floor and gave Hector a rather pathetic look from under his heavy lids.

“Will you come to bed with me?” His voice was husky and ragged.

Hector found himself nodding, and the two climbed into the bed. 

Achilles lay at his side, eyes on the ceiling for several long moments. Then his face crumpled and he seemed to be gasping and coughing at the same time, and Hector watched him in alarm. Finally he realized the man was sobbing. His eyes widened.

“Has something happened?” He asked, feeling that this was probably a very foolish question, but his companion wasn’t offering any explanations, and Hector was rather tired of being in the dark.

At length, Achilles rolled toward him and crawled on top of him, laying full on his prince to bury his face in the side of Hector’s neck. The convulsive jerks still wracked him at intervals, punctuated by deep gasps as if he was trying to control himself and couldn’t.

Hector had absolutely never seen this before, and though his memories of his companion were confusing, and seemed to float about in his brain in no particular order, he was certain he’d seen Achilles playful, sensual, focused, brusque, and enraged, but never in this wretched state.

At last, not knowing what else to do, Hector wrapped his arms around the shuddering form that pressed into him and gathered him tight. Achilles let out a long moan and seemed to convulse even more, coughing out his breath to the point where his prince wondered when he would inhale again. He could feel the other man’s fingers digging into his shoulders, and then the poor fellow started rocking side to side on top of him like a wounded animal. His moans sounded like something dying.

_He’s mad. He’s definitely gone mad, _Hector thought bemusedly, and squeezed him tighter.

“Shhh,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down the smooth, muscular back. “Here--” he finally thought of something, “—shall I rub some of your oil on you? Shall I? Here, hold still…” and Hector reached for the pot, fumbling around with his fingers till he was able to pull it to him and dip his fingers well in it. “There,” he whispered, smoothing it into the skin as Achilles stilled and lay on him, face hidden in his neck. “That’s good, isn’t it? Does that feel better?” He was speaking in the quiet murmur he used to calm nervous horses, and it seemed to be working. The strong form atop him still shuddered and quivered at intervals, but Hector continued his grooming. “Let’s get some up here. Yes? And on your sides? Like this? That’s better, isn’t it… oh, you are cold still. Let’s warm you. Shhh…”

How long he kept up his ministrations, Hector did not know. He found he didn’t mind. It was a novelty for Achilles to be so shaky, so in need, so quietly passive. He stroked the other man’s back and arms slowly, and reached up and smoothed the wild blond hair while his broken companion sighed, and shuddered, and then drew in his breath and sighed again. He wondered what happened to bring the fierce creature to this state, but accepted that it might be some time before he found out what the matter was. So he held his burden to him, and soothed, and felt himself grow sleepy as the night grew dark and the fire burned low.

Eventually, they drifted off to sleep, clinging to one another. In his dreams, Achilles was swimming desperately underwater, searching for Hector, who was sometimes there, looking at him in the blue-green depths, and sometimes not. Hector’s dreams were of Troy burning. They would both awaken somber and disturbed, but still entwined.


	8. Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a new day. Achilles has learned a serious lesson.

Achilles awakened. He could barely force his swollen lids open, but he did. Hector was warm and alive beneath him, head turned away, dark curls on the pillow, long neck pulsing with life. Achilles stared for a moment, and then closed his aching eyes again in gratitude, utter gratitude, like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He was more drained than he could have imagined was possible. He wanted nothing more than to lie on top of his sleeping prince for all eternity.

That climb up the stairway the previous night had been the most painful of his life: he wasn’t entirely certain that his mother was done tormenting him, and that a confused but living Hector really waited for him at the top of the stairs. Thetis was rarely angry enough to be cruel, but when she was finally roused to it, Zeus himself would have backed away from the freezing white lightning that seemed to snake out of her. Her rage was like a monstrous wave from a storming sea, that destroyed everything in its path coming in, and then dragged away the wreckage going out. 

It was experiences like this that made Achilles forget that his own actions could be so overwhelming to mortals. Compared to his mother, he felt himself to be a mere cub.

But upon reaching the garden, he saw the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld: Hector kneeling by the fire, Hector turning to look up at him, Hector rising to his feet, head tipped, eyes wide. Hector reaching out and touching him, and that warm, warm hand on his shoulder reassuring him that this was real. Oh, he’d almost fallen at his prince’s feet, but then he wouldn’t have been able to look into those black eyes, stare at the full curve of his lower lip, admire the wildness of the dark curls that almost, but could not quite cover his ears.

Now the morning sunlight was turning the columns and balcony white, and the sandstone walls pink and gold. Achilles stiffly, quietly lifted himself off of his prince and slipped on his tunic. Then, pushing his hair back, he went in search of his mother.

He found her threading fishing line through shells, making more of the dangling curtains that swung in various doorways of the citadel. 

Achilles came to her and sank down on his knees wordlessly. She glanced at him and kept working. 

“Your eyes are a sight,” she commented.

“Thank you for giving him back to me,” Achilles said, his gaze falling to her hands.

“Mmm. Wasn’t easy,” she warned him. “I told you he wouldn’t grow old or sick here, I never said you couldn’t break his neck, or bash his head in, or drown him.”

Achilles closed his eyes and bowed his head.

“Now you listen,” she said quietly, fingers never stopping their nimble work. “His memories are going to come back and I don’t know how quickly, or in what order.” Now she was looking at him sharply. “You let it happen. You force nothing on him, not lethe, not poppy, not your amorous impulses… you don’t try to distract him with attacks, you don’t terrorize him, you don’t do any of the things you apparently only know how to do. If this means you have no idea what to say or what to do then you say and do nothing!”

Achilles swallowed and remained kneeling.

“Do you understand?” She asked. 

He nodded.

“He may handle it well, he may go into despair, we won’t know. But you let him be.”

He nodded again, humbly.

“Good. Now go soak a towel in cold water and put it on your eyes. You look absolutely frightening.”

Dismissed, the warrior slunk away from his mother and went to soak his face in the cold water from the fountain.

Moments later, Hector emerged from their quarters, walking slowly, looking around himself as if seeing a place he remembered from long ago. He looked at Thetis, and she could tell from his eyes that he knew who she was, and that she did not seem unfamiliar to him.

“Good morning,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

He came to her politely, and greeted her, and she waved one of the handmaids forward to offer him bread and oil, and some fruit, which he accepted.

“Where is Achilles?” He asked, after a moment.

“Soaking his head in the fountain,” she said unconcernedly.

He nodded, as if this were a reasonable answer, but his gaze wandered off to the side for a moment and then came back to her. There was a hint of a smile in his eyes.

“What ails him? He was very … emotional last night.”

“He thought you were dead.”

Puzzled, he watched her tie off the string of shells with a knot. “Why did he think I was dead?”

“He couldn’t find you.”

Hector shook his head bemusedly, still looking at her.

“He thought you’d fallen off a cliff and into the sea,” she clarified.

“Why did he think that?” 

Thetis gave a shrug as if to say, _he always was a strange child._

Hector sat with the wooden bowl in his hands, thinking back over the convulsions he’d felt wracking Achilles body in the night.

“Are you certain that’s all it was? He was in a pitiful state.”

For a moment she just regarded him. Such was his modesty that his own death would appear a trifle to him, and not something to unduly distress others. What a difference from her son, who wanted his name to resound through the ages. Well, it didn’t seem to concern him as much now as it once had, and this modest, noble young man quietly dabbing his bread in olive oil was the reason.

“Yes, it was all about you. He loves you desperately.” She put her work aside and looked at him seriously. “I want you to please try to remember that. Whatever he does, or whatever you find yourself remembering he has done, you must know. He loves you like flowers love sunshine.”

Thetis let him think this over. Then she said, “I haven’t fed the horses. You might want to look in on them.”

Hector nodded and rose, and she watched him walk away. The strength in his long legs seemed steady enough, and restored. She was glad, not only for her son’s sake. Hector was a nice addition to the island, she admitted to herself. She had not only saved him for Achilles. She’d saved him because he was worth saving.


	9. The Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What will become of our boys? Well, as a matter of fact... myth and legend often misses some key details.

When Achilles had bathed again, and gotten the salt out of his hair, and eaten, he finally began to feel normal. Of course, his first thought when his hunger was satisfied was of Hector. Where was Hector? He prowled about, trying not to get uneasy, but it was impossible. The only time he was content was when Hector was at hand, and now it was worse than ever.

He wasn’t in the citadel, or in the stables. Achilles headed for the bluffs and found that Hector anywhere near the cliff gave him immediate stomach pains. Interestingly, Hector didn’t seem as fond of the cliff’s edge as he had once been either. He was sitting in the grass, a safe distance from the cliff, and staring off over the water toward the Northeast, where once, long ago, the warrior had pointed and said, “Troy.”

Achilles was afraid to approach. He had a vision of his prince, startled, leaping up and going right over the edge again. Standing well back, he finally called out, “Hector,” not too loudly.

He saw the other man turn his head and regard him steadily. He didn’t look frightened, although he didn’t look very welcoming either. Achilles waited for an acknowledgment, or invitation, or rejection, but the dark head simply turned back to face the sea again.

The Greek decided it was safe to approach, and drew up—not too close—to sit down nearby, and pick at the grass, and wait to see what would come next.

Hector looked at him again, and it was the look of a man reserving judgment.

“How did they know about the tunnel?” He asked.

Achilles continued picking green blades and letting them fall. “I never knew for sure,” he admitted. “The fisherman told me a white horse led them. I know that Paris took the white horse to get some yellow flowers for your father.”

Hector turned his head sadly. Yes, that would make sense. Paris and Priam, the two of them… decent men… loving men… honest… but always with their eyes fixed on some romantic idea. 

“You told me once that my family escaped through the tunnel,” Hector turned back to him with pained eyes. “Was that true?”

Achilles was ashamed, and yet, he’d lied out of compassion. He found he couldn’t look his beloved in the face now. “No.”

Hector waited, seeming almost afraid to breathe.

Achilles inhaled deeply and gave an impatient look around. “You know what Greeks do when they sack a city.”

“My son?” Hector whispered.

“…It was quick.” That was the only comfort he could offer.

Hector turned to stare back at the horizon, eyes distant. He didn’t seem surprised by the truth. Pained, but not surprised. Then his head lifted. “I must go back and rebuild my city.”

“Absolutely not,” Achilles snapped immediately, alarmed. “It’s been burned to the ground, and you’d be killed by any Greek who saw you.”

Hector stared at him incredulously. “I can’t abandon my people.”

“Your people—those who survived—are Greeks or Lydeans now. Let them create their lives where they land.” Achilles left off murdering grass to stare seriously at Hector. “You cannot go back. You’d be a threat to everyone who profited by the burning of Troy.” 

Hector returned to staring out at the water.

“You can’t rebuild what is lost,” Achilles said more gently.

At length, Hector straightened his legs and lay back in the grass staring up at the soft blue sky, his arms behind his head. Achilles admired him for a moment, and then moved forward carefully, waiting to see if he would be rebuffed. He met with no rejection, however, and eventually settled to lay perpendicular to his prince, resting his head on Hector’s chest.

Suddenly, the prince spoke, startling his devotee. “I feel as if I’ve known you a very long time now. I have memories of you in places that I’m sure you were not. Sparta, Thebes, Lydea…”

Achilles cast him a guilty look and kept quiet.

“Did you travel through time to watch over me?” Hector asked with a slight smile.

Achilles rolled over so that their faces were very near. “I would, if I could.”

Hector turned his face down to gaze at him. “Am I your prisoner here?”

Achilles brought his hand to Hector’s arm and rested it there, “You’re safe here.”

“But if I wanted to go? Not back to Troy, but… somewhere out there, to be amongst people again? If somewhere there are people in need of a leader, or a protector… if I could go somewhere and be of some use to someone…? Am I free to go?”

Achilles clenched his teeth. His natural instinct, of course, was to say _no, no, no… never._ He breathed deep for a moment, and then looked at his prince again.

“If you want to leave here, I will allow it, but only if I accompany you.”

Hector thought about that for a moment. “Would you help me?”

“Help you what?”

“If I find a mission or a task, something that calls to me… would you help me?”

Achilles felt that tightness in his throat again, and had to blink a few times to fight back weakness. Finally he just nodded his head. 

Hector withdrew one hand from behind his own curls and ran the fingers through the fine blond hair. “Together, you and I, we’d be… a force… you know. We could do something good in this world.”

“We couldn’t use our own names,” Achilles said. “Too many people would want us both dead.”

“We could go toward the setting sun. We could go to the far side of the sea. We could go north, where they say vineyards grow so fast they’re like weeds, and the grapes are dark and sweet.”

“But… we don’t have to do this immediately, do we?” Achilles said with a touch of appeal. “We can stay here till we’re ready. We need new armor, we need weapons, we need…”

“No, we don’t have to do this immediately.” Hector said quietly. “But I need to know that someday, I can have a purpose again. Don’t you need a purpose?”

Achilles stared at him intently. “You are my purpose.” He sighed, and there was a touch of defeat in it when he admitted, “I will go anywhere with you that you wish.”

Hector’s eyes were soft and dark upon him, and he smiled. “I’d like that.”

Achilles drank in that soft smile, that warm look, and when Hector’s eyes turned away and grew somber again, he said, to distract him, “What would your new name be?”

Hector blinked and thought for a moment. “I had a young cousin I was fond of… he died of a sudden illness when he was… far too young. I’d take his name. I’ll be Aeneas.” Then he smiled again, albeit a bit sadly, and looked to his warrior again. “And who will you be?”

_I’ll be Aeneas’s faithful servant,_ Achilles thought, staring into those dark eyes. _And we will go wherever you command. _


End file.
